NASA Selects Aerojet Rocketdyne to Develop Solar Electric Propulsion for Deep Space Missions

NASA has selected Aerojet Rocketdyne to design and develop an advanced solar electric propulsion (SEP) system that will serve as a critical enabling technology for sending humans and robots on deep space exploration missions to cislunar space, asteroids and the Red Planet.

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This is a substantial and interesting news item, well reported and expressed.

IMHO, Aerojet-Rocketdyne is the world’s leading designer and producer of rocket and spacecraft propulsion systems.

> The SEP effort is based in part on NASA’s exploratory work on Hall ion thrusters which trap electrons in a magnetic field and uses them to ionize and accelerate the onboard xenon gas propellant to produce thrust much more efficiently than chemical thrusters.

Isn’t this identical to the ion engine used aboard the Dawn spacecraft?

> Solar electric ion propulsion is already being used in NASA’s hugely successful Dawn asteroid orbiter mission.

Yes. It is. So why the announcement?

mollwollfumble said:

IMHO, Aerojet-Rocketdyne is the world’s leading designer and producer of rocket and spacecraft propulsion systems.

> The SEP effort is based in part on NASA’s exploratory work on Hall ion thrusters which trap electrons in a magnetic field and uses them to ionize and accelerate the onboard xenon gas propellant to produce thrust much more efficiently than chemical thrusters.

Isn’t this identical to the ion engine used aboard the Dawn spacecraft?

> Solar electric ion propulsion is already being used in NASA’s hugely successful Dawn asteroid orbiter mission.

Yes. It is. So why the announcement?

Over excitement?